Cold Comfort: A Celebration of the Frozen World

A joyful love letter to the cold and an impassioned call for its conservation

“This is science writing at its finest.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Global warming is often discussed as an issue of heat—but the even more pressing issue, as our planetary thermometer continues its slow rise, is one of cold. Cold places are warming at a faster rate than hot places, and this loss of cold will have major consequences for our world as it reshapes ecosystems and infrastructure alike. Cold Comfort is an impassioned argument for the importance of cold that compels readers to fall in love with this endangered resource before it’s too late.

Cold Comfort charts a year in author Miranda Weiss's hometown of Homer, Alaska, from an unusually dreary summer that opens into a frigid, lovely winter. Each chapter explores a different facet of the cold, as Weiss guides readers through majestic, icy adventures, from the cosmic cooling that led to our planet’s creation to the unique properties of ice and snow. In prose as beautiful and intricate as a snowflake, Cold Comfort draws from science, culture, and history to show the value of the cold to us as individuals, as societies, and as a species.

Combining the quiet joy of Wintering with the urgency of Life on a Little-Known Planet, Cold Comfort is an exuberant and endlessly curious love letter to the cold. Weiss’s contagious sense of awe and gorgeous descriptions of the natural world will convince even the chilliest among us of the importance and wonder of this natural resource.